Computer networks often incorporate network devices (such as routers and/or switches) that supply redundancy and/or perform load-balancing. For example, redundant Provider Edge (PE) routers may facilitate communication to a particular Customer Edge (CE) router even in the event that one of the PE routers experiences a failure. Additionally or alternatively, these PE routers may simultaneously and/or collectively forward a workload and/or flow to the CE router, thereby potentially increasing the throughput to the CE router.
However, in some scenarios, the benefits of redundancy and/or load-balancing may be unachievable with traditional networking technology. For example, in a traditional configuration, one customer's CE router may be multi-homed to redundant Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) PE routers capable of forwarding Layer 2 and Layer 3 traffic. In this example, these EVPN PE routers may interface with a Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (L3VPN) PE router that is connected to another customer's CE router but is only capable of forwarding Layer 3 traffic.
Unfortunately, due to the traditional Layer 3 advertising procedure used by the redundant EVPN PE routers, the L3VPN PE router may be unaware that the customer's CE router is multi-homed to the redundant EVPN PE routers. Instead, the L3VPN PE router may be aware of only one of the routes that lead to the customer's CE router via the redundant EVPN PE routers. As a result, the L3VPN PE router may be unable to facilitate load-balancing across the redundant EVPN PE routers when forwarding traffic to the customer's CE router. Additionally or alternatively, the L3VPN PE router may be unable to forward any traffic to the customer's CE router in the event that the EVPN PE router corresponding to the known route experiences a failure.
The instant disclosure, therefore, identifies and addresses a need for improved and/or additional methods, systems, and apparatuses for achieving redundancy and load-balancing across communication layers within networks.